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The Election Commission has announced that a special intensive revision of voter rolls will be carried out in 12 states and Union territories. The draft rolls will be published on December 9 and the final one on February 7, 2026.

The exercise will cover Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Goa, Puducherry, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Lakshadweep, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar said at a press conference.

Polls are scheduled for Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry next year.

Kumar said a separate order will be issued later for Assam, as the Citizenship Act has separate provisions for the state.

The exercise was conducted in Bihar in recent months ahead of the Assembly elections in the state. At least 47 lakh voters in Bihar were excluded from the final electoral roll published by the Election Commission on September 30 after the revision of the list. Read more.

A farmer was killed in Madhya Pradesh’s Guna allegedly after a Bharatiya Janata Party leader and several aides ran a vehicle over him in connection with a land dispute. The police said that the farmer, Ram Swaroop Dhakad, was attacked when he was on his way to his field in Ganeshpura village with his wife.

A complaint states that BJP leader Mahendra Nagar and his aides surrounded Dhakad, beat him with sticks and rods, and ran a vehicle over him. A murder case has been registered against Nagar, three women from his family and 14 others.

The farmer’s family alleged that Nagar had been threatening small cultivators in the region to sell their land at cheap prices. The family said that Dhakad’s refusal to comply led to his death. Read more.

The Supreme Court declined a request by the Delhi Police for two weeks’ time to file counter affidavits to petitions filed by activists Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and three others seeking bail in the 2020 Delhi riots case. The bench stated that enough time had already been granted.

It posted the hearing for Friday and directed the Delhi Police to file the counter affidavit by then.

Khalid and Imam, along with Meeran Haider, Gulfisha Fatima and Shifa Ur Rehman, had challenged a judgement issued by the Delhi High Court on September 2 dismissing their bail applications in the case.

The violence in 2020 had left 53 dead and hundreds injured. Most of those killed were Muslims.

The Delhi Police have claimed that the violence was part of a larger conspiracy to defame Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and was planned by those who organised the protests against the amended Citizenship Act. Read more.

Chief Justice of India BR Gavai has recommended that Justice Surya Kant, the second-most senior judge in the Supreme Court, should be appointed as his successor. Gavai, who became the chief justice on May 14, will retire on November 23.

The recommendation made by Gavai to the Union law ministry is part of the convention on the appointment of the top court’s chief justices.

Kant’s appointment as the chief justice will have to be approved by the Union government. He is expected to retire in February 2027. Read more.

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